The issue broadly comes down to security on one side and freedom, liberty and justice on the other. On the same day Ms Rice was in Canada last week on that shadowy "partnership" arrangement between US, Mexico and Canada, our Supreme Court ruled, in effect, that there is no security without freedom. Canada won't lock up suspected terrorists forever without some process that allows a hearing of the evidence against them, which exists in Great Britain. Terrorism will be handled as the crime it is.
All here know that that this can't be conjugated easily, in the same way as Americans---as I understand from their carefully measured comments here about the US Constitution and the Bill, national and state rights etc---grapple with security and freedom issues involving their domestic and national interests. But the essence of the SCOC ruling, applauded by the country, was that Canada will not lose itself through fear.
Risk is our abiding companion. Nothing is safe and nothing is certain. Canada has sacrificed mightily to empire. British and Canadian casualties in the single battle at Passchendaele in 1917 were greater than all US losses in both world wars. Liberal is not a despised word in Canada. A conservative government presides. A strong country's only fear, as FDR said, is fear itself.
Friends may talk candidly to friends. Canada's friendship and trade relations with the US is the envy of the world. We are the country's biggest energy supplier. A billion trade dollars crosses our border every day. "Foreigner" is not in the Canadian lexicon for "American." A cultural difference may be a finely tuned antennae to fearmongering on domestic (i.e. gun laws) and national (i.e. security) issues. It's puzzling to me to read of American concerns of eroding liberty in a country that is so uniquely secure.
